Natural Selection
by ForeverShippingJohnlock
Summary: The night before his tenth birthday, an unwelcome visitor appears in Ciel's dreams. Ciel may not understand what's going on, but he does know one thing for certain: he's not ready to hear what this visitor has to say.


Natural Selection

When an excitable Ciel Phantomhive finally drifts off to sleep on the eve of his tenth birthday, he has a dream.

It's unlike any other dream he has ever had. Ciel usually dreams of fantastical things, of colour and magic, molding his subconscious into impossible worlds of wonder. But now, as he wanders through the charred hallways of what he knows is the dismal remains of his home, he is frightened. He shivers as the night wind whips his nightshirt around his bare feet. Everywhere he looks, all he sees is darkness. Ciel has never had a particular fear of the dark, but as he looks at the moonlit shadows painting unfamiliar shapes on what's left of the walls, he's beginning to understand the feeling. He makes his way further down the hallway, discomfited by how quiet everything is.

"Mother? Father?" he calls out, wincing at how loud his own voice sounds in the silence. Panic starts to rise in his chest as he receives no replies. He tries again, a little louder. "Mother! Father! Where are you?"

"You're wasting your time," comes a familiar sounding voice from behind him in the darkness. Ciel starts violently and swings around to look at the intruder.

"No, I'm not! I need to find them! They could be hurt!"

The figure steps forward a little as he replies, but Ciel still can't make him out. "They're not hurt."

As frightening as the situation is, Ciel can't help but feel relieved. He lets out a breath, only to take another in a sharp gasp as the shadowy figure continues in a voice that chills Ciel far more than an icy night wind ever could. "They're dead."

"You're lying!" Ciel shouts, tears creeping into his eyes even through the denial that holds steadfast in his small chest. "Who are you? Why are you saying such horrible things?"

Then the figure finally steps fully forward, coming to rest in a patch of moonlight and Ciel stumbles back, shocked, unable to tear his eyes away from the face staring back at him.

 _His own face._

Ciel knows he's been an only child all his life and yet, here stands someone before him who could very well be his identical twin. They're the same, but as Ciel takes a shaky step towards the boy, he starts to take in their differences.

His doppelganger is covered in a fine layer of dirt and grime. His nightshirt is thin and tattered and as dirty, if not dirtier, than his skin. That same skin is mottled by cuts and bruises—some old, some new. Bones stick out prominently from his abused skin, apparent starvation taking its toll on the young body. His hair lies lank with grease, and covers one of his eyes completely, but Ciel can see a large amount of blood under his fringe, and wonders grimly what injury is hiding there. Ciel can see the boy's other eye, however. He can see that his own brilliant blues are no longer reflected in this supposed mirror image; his doppelganger's eye is sunken and dulled. The brilliancy of Ciel's own blue eyes do not shine through here, the boy's eye has seemingly long since lost the sparkle of a happy youth. Now, when Ciel looks, all he sees is a deep sorrow and cold determination. The boy's mouth is set in a firm line, and Ciel wonders how long it's been since a smile has graced the Other's face.

"You're… me," Ciel says, putting all of his many tutors to shame by such a simplistic statement, but he finds it's all he's currently capable of.

"No. Not anymore," the doppelganger replies, so fiercely that Ciel winces. "I'm a better version of you. I'm the one that survived. You don't know _anything._ "

Ciel reels from the tone, but quickly recovers, trying to gather the courage that he lacks in this moment. "I know lots of things!"

"You don't know _pain,_ " the Other hisses. "You don't know agony, you don't know humiliation. You don't know what it's like to watch people around you die and wish it was you."

Ciel's eyes widen with every word and suddenly everything becomes too much and he claps his hands over his ears and shuts his eyes. "Stop this! I won't hear any more!"

But the Other's voice keeps coming clearly, despite Ciel's hands held desperately to his ears. "You don't know what it's like to feel hatred. What it feels like to have it burn inside you, and to like how it feels, to let it be the fuel that lights the fire to survive. You don't know revenge, and how delicious it is to achieve it, how you want _more."_

"Stop! Please!"

The Other laughs a little, hollow and cruel. "You sound just like me in the beginning. But I quickly learned that begging means nothing. And that _no one_ will lower me to it again." The Other lets out a small chuckle, and a chill goes up Ciel's spine. "Besides, I find it is infinitely more enjoyable standing on the other side of it. And until you know what that feels like—"

Ciel gasps as hands suddenly grab his and wrench them down, surprise making his eyes snap open. The Other's face is only inches away as he speaks with pure venom, "You. Are. _Weak_."

Ciel is still screaming when he wakes up.

He wastes no time whatsoever in throwing off his covers and sprinting the winding hallways towards his parents' bedroom before any of the servants can try and attend to him. Ciel wrenches open their door, the wood swinging inward and banging against the adjacent wall. His parents startle awake at the sudden sound, his father already reaching for the gun Ciel knows he keeps in his nightstand, but their faces soften as they take in the sight of him.

Ignoring their sleepy concerned questions, Ciel just hurries to the bedside and practically jumps into his mother's open arms. She rocks him slightly as she whispers maternal comfort into his ear, his father giving him quiet reassurance at her shoulder. Ciel sighs in contentment, happy in the knowledge that they're alive, that he'll be okay, that it was just a dream.

Until he opens his eyes and sees the mirror behind his parents. The doppelganger is standing in the ornate glass and Ciel watches, near catatonic with fear, as he reaches up a skeletal hand to move aside the fringe covering his eye. Where once there was a bright blue eye, is now an elaborate pentagram, blood steadily weeping from beneath it. Ciel opens his mouth, perhaps to alert his parents to this supernatural intruder, but all that comes out is one long, unending scream.

No one else can see the Other's demonic eye glowing an ethereal purple, its aura emanating evil. No one else can see the Other's malicious grin as black smoke surrounds him, a fanged smile appearing in that darkness. No one else can see the Other's mouth silently form a single word.

 _Soon._


End file.
